Typography Books

Typographic Design: Form & Communication is the definitive reference for graphic designers, providing a comprehensive introduction to the visual word. This book provides essential guidance on everything related to type: from letterforms and negative space, to messaging, processes, and history. This new seventh edition has been fully updated with new coverage of contemporary typography processes, updated case studies, and new examples from branding, print, web, motion, and more. On-screen typographic design concepts are discussed in greater detail, and the online supplemental materials include new flashcards, terminology and quizzes.

Page through the personal sketchbooks of the most influential and inventive illustrators and typographers working today. This rich compendium of typographic ideas stresses the importance of typographic thinking at a time when reading habits are evolving, while celebrating the varied and innovative ways that designers practice this time-honored craft.

Theory of Type Design by internationally renowned type designer Gerard Unger is the first comprehensive theory of typeface design. This volume consists of 24 concise chapters, each clearly describing a different aspect of type design, from the influence of language to today's digital developments, from how our eyes and brain process letterforms to their power of expression. This book includes more than 200 illustrations and practical examples that illuminate the theoretical material. The terminology is succinctly explained in the volume's extensive glossary.

Type Matters bridges the scholarship of typography and design with the field of rhetoric. Contributors address the ways in which and places where typography enacts or reveals rhetorical principles. The collection includes chapters that situate texts broadly; frame their discussions and analyses rhetorically, technologically, and culturally; draw from scholarship ranging from rhetoric and writing studies to graphic design theory and beyond; and explore the ways that the visual and tactile shapes of letters persuade and convey information to readers.

The Art of Type and Typography is an introduction to the art and rules of typography. Incorporating the industry standard ― InDesign ― for typesetting from the outset, this book serves as a guide for beginning students to learn to set type properly through tutorials, activities, and examples of student work.

Design School: Type is an instructive guide for students, recent graduates, and self-taught designers. You'll get a comprehensive introduction to typography, a crucially important skill that underpins practically every aspect of graphic design.

Never Use Futura explores the cultural history and uses of a face that's so common you might not notice, until you start looking, and then you can't escape it. Douglas Thomas traces Futura from its Bauhaus-inspired origin in Paul Renner's 1924 design, to its current role as the go-to choice for corporate work, logos, motion pictures, and advertisements. Never Use Futura is illuminating, sometimes playful, reading, not just for type nerds, but for anyone interested in how typefaces are used, take on meaning, and become a language of their own.

Futura: The Typeface is a stunning examination of one of the most popular typefaces ever created. Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, the story of Futura is a fascinating one. From its Bauhaus origins to its use as the first font on the moon in 1969, this book tells the story of how the typeface went from representing radicalism in design to dependability.

Typographic Style Handbook is an indispensable new manual for anyone working with text - books, journals, company reports, websites or marketing material - who wishes to develop an understanding of how to produce clean, clear and consistent typography. The handbook is divided into three sections: General typesetting covers the basic rules of setting text; Books and journals explains the typographic styles used within the publishing industry; and Corporate style describes how the treatment of text can be integrated into an organisation's branding guidelines.

The Visual History of Type is a comprehensive, detailed survey of the major typefaces produced since the advent of printing with movable type in the mid-fifteenth century to the present day. Arranged chronologically to provide context, more than 320 typefaces are displayed in the form of their original type specimens or earliest printing. Each entry is supported by a brief history and description of defining characteristics of the typeface.

The surprising, exciting and playful world of contemporary letter art is brought to life in this book. Berlin street artist RYLSEE takes us on a journey through the creative potential of lettering, showing the many facets of this fresh and powerful art form.

Custom Lettering of the 20s and 30s features over 4,500 examples of custom lettering from the heyday of Art Deco and the experimental modernity of the Futurists - from geometric sans, elegant brush scripts, and heavy industrial serifs to hand-drawn eccentricities and outré display type.

Better Web Typography for a Better Web is a book is based on a top-rated online course explaining typography to people who build web sites - web designers and web developers. The author, Matej Latin, takes complex concepts such as vertical rhythm, modular scale and page composition, and explains them in a simple way. The content of the book is accompanied by live code examples and the readers design and build an example website as they go through it.

Revival Type offers an illuminating account of the design inspirations and technical transformations that have shaped the digital typefaces of the 21st century. Many typefaces from the pre-digital past have been reinvented for use on computers and mobile devices, while other new font designs are revivals of letterforms, drawn from inscriptions, calligraphic manuals, posters, and book jackets. This book deftly introduces these fonts, many of which are widely used, and engagingly tells their stories.

Type Tells Tales offers a fresh look at typographic design as an art and as a storytelling device that expresses narratives, emotions, and voice. Navigating the far reaches of graphic design, Steven Heller and Gail Anderson reveal how type can render a particular voice or multiple conversations, how letters in various shapes and sizes can guide the eye through dense information, and how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes.

The Golden Secrets of Lettering is a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide to hand lettering. With easy-to-understand instructions and guidelines, plenty of inspirational examples, and hundreds of hand sketches and illustrations, Martina Flor shows readers how to transform their initial lettering concepts and handdrawn sketches into a well-shaped, exquisite piece of digital lettering that can be sold and published.

With illustrated step-by-step instructions, The Big Awesome Book of Hand & Chalk Lettering shows the complete beginner how to master the art of hand lettering, the composition/design of phrases on the page, and flourishes to embellish the design. It also includes chalk lettering, fun prompts for writing, and 15 projects and gift ideas, ranging from gift tags to a lettered poster to chalk-lettered signs for special events.

Type: A Visual History of Typefaces offers a thorough overview of typeface design from 1628 to the mid-20th century. Derived from a distinguished Dutch collection, a series of exquisitely designed catalogues trace the evolution of the printed letter via specimens in roman, italic, bold, semibold, narrow, and broad fonts. Borders, ornaments, initial letters, and decorations are also included, along with lithographic examples, letters by sign writers, inscription carvers, and calligraphers.

Designer Alex W. White packs the pages with fifteen hundred images - modern and ancient, specially created and found - that illustrate typographic concepts and continue to yield more complexity and connectivity with each viewing. All the basics of type design are covered, and in-depth information is provided on more advanced topics such as the differences between type applications, how typography creates identity, and what best inspires readers.

Type Tricks is about typographical rules and the underlying structure of the work process in the design of new typefaces. In that way, it is both a reference book and a user manual. In an illustrative format, it presents the different stages of type design in an easily accessible manner.

How to Draw Type and Influence People shows how we use type to understand different messages. Each typeface is introduced and explained and then creative exercises show the reader how to draw each font and invite them to explore the associations evoked by the styles, to reveal why they have come about and how to create their own versions.

With the support of the visionary Frank Pick at the London Underground, Edward Johnston (1872-1944) and Eric Gill (1882-1940) unwittingly developed two of the world's most enduring typefaces-Johnston still stands as London's primary 'wayfinding' lettering, while Gill Sans is the type of choice within many public and private organizations across the UK today. Exploring for the first time the evolution and adoption of both the Johnston and Gill typefaces, this unique publication shows how each has had a profound impact on Britain's visual language.

It's one of the most iconic features of London life, yet perhaps the least celebrated: the Johnston typeface, which has decorated signage throughout the entire London Transport system for a century. This book celebrates the Johnston typeface and its creator, Edward Johnston (1872-1944), bringing him long-overdue recognition as one of the key creators of our shared visual image of London life.

A creative, hands-on approach to the ever-popular field of typography design, The Making of Artistic Typefaces is a showcase of handcrafted types as well as a toolkit of ideas and practical skills for creating fonts. Type-loving creatives will find instructions on how to re-create dynamic typefaces, as well as examples of individual fonts that include details on the materials used and their use in real-world applications such as poster design, book covers, and event branding.

Slab Serif Type: A Century of Bold Letterforms is a compact, yet comprehensive design resource, expertly selected by graphic design's leading historians. Slabs come from a genre of Egyptian typefaces (some of the leading slabs are called Cairo and Sphinx) brought back to France by Napoleon and marketed in specimen sheets and books as representing a glorious heritage brought to the present. The IBM logo is one of the most famous slab serif marks. The serifs were often exaggerated so they would not result in simply beautiful letterforms but would be functionally superior to other faces. Following the cult typography volumes Scripts, Shadow Type, and Stencil Type, this new volume comprises an artfully curated selection of hundreds of international and classic examples to inspire fresh and unexpected typographic ideas.

Broken into sections covering the fundamentals of typography, the book features inspiring works by acclaimed typographic designers from across the world. Each section illustrates technical points and encourages readers to try out new ideas of their own. The subjects covered include typographic rebus, abstract form, overlapping, using grids, metaphoric construction and illumination.

Official printer for the Duke of Parma, Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) declared that well-designed type derived its beauty from four principles: uniformity of design, sharpness and neatness, good taste, and charm. In his Manuale tipografico, published posthumously in 1818, he distilled these principles into a comprehensive catalog of type and set the standard for printing the alphabet thereafter. TASCHEN's meticulous reprint of Bodoni's masterwork celebrates what was an unprecedented degree of technical refinement and visual elegance, as well as exploring the origins of the much-loved Bodoni typeface, still much deployed in both print and digital media. Like the original, the book features 142 sets of roman and italic typefaces, a wide selection of borders, ornaments, symbols, and flowers, as well as Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, Phoenician, Armenian, Coptic, and Tibetan alphabets.

The Geometry of Type explores 100 traditional and modern typefaces in detail, with a full spread devoted to each entry. Characters from each typeface are enlarged and annotated to reveal key features, anatomical details, and the finer, often-overlooked elements of type design, which shows how these attributes affect mood and readability. Sidebar information lists the designer and foundry, the year of release and the different weights and styles available, while feature boxes explain the origins and best uses for each typeface, such as whether it is suitable for running text or as a display font for headlines.

There are typographic works that outlive the times in which they were created. Some of these works have been brought together to form this book. "typography today" celebrates 20th century typography with contributions by John Cage, Wim Crouwel, Franco Grignani, Helmut Schmid, Kohei Sugiura and Wolfgang Weingart. The book also includes the essay "Typography as Communication and Form" by Emil Ruder.